The waves of the Global Ocean only became rougher and rougher the longer they were at sea, and the journey became ever so taxing. Two and a half months into the voyage, the first vegetables from Anwen’s greenhouse garden sprouted, although the yield was sparse. Sailors routinely argued over how to ration the food, and weariness slowly tore away at them. Not a single soul aboard had ever been so far away from home for so long. To that end, Rohan devised entertaining ways to keep his crews’ minds and bodies in as good form as possible.
It was simply, really. 12 sailors on one end of a rope, firmly holding onto it, and Stefan by himself on the other. In grueling games of tug-of-war, the southern crew had to work together, putting their petty differences aside in order to outpull the powerful half-Titanian, half-northern teenager and win the contest. The only reward they would gain was the return of appreciation and gratitude from their fellow sailors, and the bragging rights that came with beating a wielder of Reserve.
Putting in decent effort, Stefan was given a run for his money as the other side put every fiber of muscle into hauling the rope to their side. Stefan shifted all his weight to one hip to give more of a semblance of trying. Perhaps it was lack of recent combat practice, but as he and the other team grabbed at each side of the rope, the untrained, ordinary men on the other side were started to give him somewhat of a hard time.
This contest can really go in anyone’s favor, Stefan reasoned. Would he actually start trying, or give them the satisfaction of a well-earned win like he almost always did in their activities together? If he couldn’t try in even the most ordinary, non-combative environments, then how useful would he be the next time he saw battle?
“He’s struggling, fellas!” a confident sailor cried. “We got this, just a few more tugs! Rope pulling is what us seamen are made for!”
Stefan heaved and heaved, the adrenaline he got solely from his Terran heritage forcing him to push through. But suddenly the weight felt a lot lighter. Each subsequent pull he made was notably easier, and he felt the rope feeding backwards much faster than what his hands were mustering.
Before he understood how the sudden ease came to be, the southern team was on the floor of the top deck, flung forward and sprawled out on the ground. They groaned in defeat and annoyance as they pulled themselves to their knees and feet.
“Cheater!” a hand pointed accusingly in his direction. “The kid was only supposed to rely on himself, and he got him some help! Him’s a cheat, a fraud!”
“W-Wait! You don’t understand—no, wait…
A chorus of laughter erupted behind him. The teenager swooped around and found a small figure holding a section of rope, a smirk of pride etched across his face.
“Ilias...? How did you get there?” Stefan asked before he thought of scolding the boy for interfering in his contest.
“Guess I’m just that sneaky.” the 10-year-old chortled. He pointed a finger at the southern men as one of them stomped their way past Stefan to him.
“That northerner side of you is getting in the way, kid,” the sailor bent over, driving the tip of his index finger into the boy’s forehead. “Papaw was right. I guess your people are barbarians, no matter how little of their blood’s in ya.”
“Buddy, relax,” Stefan said, trying to calm the irritated sailor. “He didn’t know any better. He just dropped in.”
“We hate cheaters,” the southern man turned around and stared daggers into him. “And if there’s one thing we dislike more, it’s gotta be people who don’t correct a cheater’s behaviour!”
“Leave him alone. If you’re gonna be mad at someone, be mad at me.” Stefan pushed himself in between the sailor and Ilias, the latter of whom had dropped the rope and was unable to utter a word, his mind completely bogged by the strange combination of words that had come out of the sailor’s mouth.
“Enough!” a powerful voice beckoned. The 12 sailors, Stefan, and Ilias whipped their heads towards the stern of the boat, where a figure had just pulled itself out from below deck. He made strides that shook the floorboards below them, warranting the silence of everyone in the vicinity. He grabbed the sailor who confronted Ilias by the collar of the shirt. His teammates were in utter shock, seeing their captain discipline one of his crew in such a way for the first time.
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“You,” he said, his knuckles paling as they gripped the sailor’s shirt tighter. “You so much as graze a hair on his head like that again, I’ll send you back home alone. In a raft. That boy’s a guest and we treat him like one. Am I understood, sailor?”
“Y-Yes, sir.” the young sailor stammered, taking a half-step backwards.
“Thank you. Now don’t let me see you again for the rest of the day. Scram,”
Rohan let go of the man’s shirt, allowing him to scramble below deck. As his gaze shifted, the other 11 men froze like deer as his eyes touched them.
“If y’all don’t wanna make the same mistake as that sorry fella, come closer. You too, Stefan.”
The older boy glanced behind at his cousin, his face now full of remorse. Stefan could only offer a sympathetic smile. Rohan placed a warm hand on the little boy’s scalp and gave him a beam.
“That fella ain’t gonna do nothin’ to ya anymore. Rest assured. Run along, now. We’ll be busy for a while.”
Ilias gave a slight, soft smile, and ran off to another area of Serenity’s Song. He instructed Stefan and the 11 remaining sailors to make a circle.
“That fella there, he must’ve been told a lot of things about northerners growing up. Lots of unfavorable things, from his ma and pa, or maybe even his grandparents. Now, I never met a northerner until I met you, Stefan, and your buddy Ivan. Well technically, I’d met Ilias a couple of times, but I’m getting ahead of myself. I myself never met one till then, but I know a few things about ‘em,” he pointed to his temple. “And our southern forefathers did have trouble with Stefan’s people, lots of it. But it wasn’t all trouble, not at all.”
Rohan began to recount a grand tale woven from many intricate, smaller stories.
Traditional south Yeupisian land, thousands of years earlier, had once gone a little farther north than the current boundaries, past the western section of the Marius Mountains and also into the southern portion of the Barrens. This caused northern and southern Yeupisians to interact heavily, doing trade, collecting resources and even marrying one another within this shared heartland. Of course, there were breaks in this mostly peaceful relationship, but none lasted long. Northerners and Southerners were each descended from different, but not very dissimilar groups of people called ethnicities, with their own languages and heritage. Despite these differences, all these groups generally got along well with one another. It was not until the First Invasion of Terra by the Titanians where things became more fragmented. In an effort to survive the increasingly frequent raids, each of the two races competed more and more for whatever resources they could gather, whether it be land, food, water, or shelter. They simultaneously defended themselves from Titanian attacks while trying to protect their possessions from their former neighbours. The various ethnicities sided with those who looked, acted, and thought similarly to them, giving rise to the modern-day northerners and southerners, each now speaking a slightly different dialect of the tongue forced upon them by the Titanians, losing many labels passed down through generations to time. These actions culminated into many wars throughout the centuries, and little by little, the northerners began to get the upper hand. They were able to push the southerners further and further south until they only occupied the southern third of the continent. Despite their smaller numbers, it was thought by many underground southerner scholars, including Rohan’s father, that the northerners only came out on top due to technology secretly being given to them, suggesting that the Titanians were intentionally pitting the two groups against one another for at least some of the centuries-long rift. 41 years earlier, in a desperate, last-ditch effort to save themselves, the southern leadership begged the Emperor Henrik and the Titanians to create a barrier between them and the northerners, resulting in the construction of the Marius Mountains. The request was granted in exchange for the southerners becoming Titanian subjects, their lands used for agricultural purposes to feed the alien people. Every aspect of life would be restricted and regulated, and they would be taught that the Titanians were their only way to flourish as a society. The Barrens, a region that was once the only free zone for trade and shared dwellings between the two races since the arrival of the Titanians, were forced to be depopulated, and any and all contact between northerners and southerners would be punished brutally.
“So, Stefan,” Rohan neared the end of his talk. “When Ivan mentioned way back when we were about to leave the permitted zone that relations between our people could normalize, I was elated. It filled me real hope that there were northerners who wanted to see things get back to how they should be.”
“Is that true, Cap?” a sailor inquired. “You wanted to be friendly with the northerners the whole time?”
“I just never had the chance to say it aloud until now,” Rohan chuckled. “I think this journey may be the start to a new path for us northerners and southerners. It’ll take a whole lot of work, but now I believe we can become peaceful neighbours once again, just as our ancestors were millennia ago.”
Stefan was filled with a sense of determination, renewed and invigorated by Rohan’s words. Knowing about a dark past and present, he was hopeful that he could be a part of the process that would bring about peace for all Yeupisians. Working with them, he knew there would be a way to free both the northerners and the southerners from the cold, iron grip of the Titanian regime.
Just then, appearing from the Jacob’s ladder, Manisha crouched next to Rohan. She whispered a few words into his ear. His eyes became agape. The sailors judged by his expression that whatever news the navigator had given the captain was deeply consequential.
“Are you serious?” Rohan shot up to his feet, grabbing a telescope from Manisha’s hands.